Tears of Joy
by MoonstoneAndStarDust
Summary: Why does Hermione keep crying? And why can Ron not seem to find a way to fix it, no matter how much he wants to?


**A/N: Hope you enjoy! This isn't attached to any of my other stories or Romione one shots as far as content goes (nothing is referenced), but just assume all of my Romione one shots are in the SALF universe unless I say otherwise. I mention a few other incidents in this story that I'll probably eventually write about, but don't have anything yet! And I'm always up for hearing what you'd like to read. I had a request and one point to do something from when Harry, Ron, and Hermione live in Grimmauld place together, and I'd still like to do that at some point, so any prompts or ideas about what exactly it should be about would be great! I feel like the possibilities are endless.**

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He couldn't understand why it was happening. Again.

It was a beautiful day in late July. Both of them with no plans other than to get things done around the house and spend time together. Nothing was amiss. But, for some reason, for the third time that day, Hermione had broken down in tears. And he couldn't fathom why.

The first time it had happened, he'd been up making an elaborate breakfast - something he enjoyed doing as often as he could on the weekends - when Hermione had wandered in a little later than was normal for her, a bit groggy but offering to help. She'd just started on the eggs while he continued to fry potatoes, when an egg had slipped from her tired grasp and fell to the floor. Ron had let out a chuckle, easily brushing off the incident as he pulled his wand to vanish the mess. He glanced up at his wife to give her a reassuring smile and probably make some kind of funny comment, only to have it fly out of his head at the look on her face. Her lip was trembling and her eyes were watery as she slowly turned to grab another egg.

"You alright, love?" he'd asked, confused yet concerned.

"Fine," she said with a sniff, continuing to crack eggs into a bowl and working hard to hold back tears. Ron furrowed his brow in concern, turning down the heat on the potatoes before moving over to stand behind his wife. He tentatively wrapped his arms around her waist, his hands lightly stroking the smooth material of her pajamas as she let out a shaky sigh and he kissed the top of her head.

"Sorry," she said a bit dejectedly. "Don't know what's wrong with me. It's a perfectly lovely day, but I woke up feeling…"

"Feeling what, love?" he asked softly, dropping a kiss against her shoulder this time.

"I don't know," she responded, this time with an annoyed bite to her words. Though whether she was irritated with him or herself he couldn't quite tell. "I'm probably just tired from this monster of a case. And hungry. I'll be fine once I get some food in me."

Ron had reluctantly let it go before going back to prepping their meal. She did seem better after breakfast, but she didn't remain that way.

"How many times have I told you to turn your clothes right side out before chucking them into the laundry?" she'd asked through gritted teeth a few hours later, correcting his mistake a bit forcefully as she folded the laundry by hand. Something she seemed to have forgotten she could do by magic.

"Umm… sorry," he'd mumbled out, watching her nervously as she viciously shook out his jeans.

"I mean, how hard is it to do?" she'd snapped. "You take them off and simply make sure everything's as it should be before chucking them into the hamper. Or on the floor, as you so love to do."

By the time she'd finished her scathing comments, she was crying angry tears. And while she _had_ asked him a few times throughout their five years of cohabitation to be better about the laundry, he'd never seen her this worked up over it.

"Hermione," he began tentatively, "what's-"

"Just let me do it," she'd eventually snapped, pulling the pair of socks he was folding out of his hands, chucking them into the half folded basket of laundry before picking it up and storming off to their bedroom.

She hadn't emerged for a good while, and Ron had busied himself with working on fixing one of the cabinet doors that had come loose in the kitchen, thinking it best to let her cool down rather than push her to tell him what was really bothering her. It was as he was putting together sandwiches for both of them that she finally emerged, a guilty expression on her face that was replaced with one of tenderness and regret as she watched him set their food on the table.

"I'm so sorry, Ron," she managed to get out before collapsing into the most flow blown tears she'd succumbed to so far. He was immediately at her side, and now he stood completely flummoxed as to why she was now crying for the third time.

"It's all right, love," he said, which calmed her a little bit as he held her and soothingly rubbed her back. Unsure of what else to do, Ron pulled out her chair and grabbed her hand, leading her to it so she could sit down. But the moment he sat in his own chair, she crawled into his lap, her legs somehow managing to wind tightly around his waist and her arms gripping his neck as she sobbed into his shoulder.

"Hermione," he said in surprise, holding her back and managing to talk through the cloud of hair surrounding his face, "what's the matter?"

It took her a moment to calm down enough to say anything, but she eventually got to the point where she was able to get words out.

"I've… I've behaved so ghastly to you today," she said through her continued tears. "I'm a… a horrible wi-wife."

She broke down in sobs once again, Ron completely taken aback by her words. He shushed her as he kissed the side of her head. "You know that's not true."

"But it is!" she wailed. "I can't… can't even cook br-breakfast without spoiling things." She paused to sniff loudly. "And then I yelled at you for no good reason. You… you really do so much for me. And I'm… I'm an ungrateful c-cow."

Ron let out a long suffering sigh. He was used to the occasional bouts of insecurity from his wife, but never anything to this scale. Same went for the tears. But now that he thought about it, she _had_ cried an awful lot over the last week. A few times just out of exhaustion after work, and once because she'd finished a book she'd really enjoyed. She'd even cried after they'd had sex one night. Just because she thought it had been "absolutely wonderful."

"Love, you're perfect," he said, somehow managing to get her to pull away a bit so he could look at her. He brushed her hair back from her face as she wiped her tears and refused to meet his eyes. "You're the best wife I've ever had."

His attempt at a joke had the desired effect, and he got a brief snort of laughter out of her, though she continued to wipe at her eyes.

"You know I love you more than anything," he continued, "and I think we've both established a few times that that love is unconditional. So I'm not going to love you less, even if you think you've messed things up every now and then, alright?"

Hermione gave a nod and briefly glanced up, offering him a soft smile. Ron leaned forward and kissed her forehead before tilting her chin up and dropping a soft peck on her lips. She smiled at him as he pulled back.

"You're right," she said, her voice a little stuffy sounding and her eyes still glistening. "I'm sorry."

"You're fine," he assured her, though he couldn't help being worried and voicing his concerns. "But, is everything really okay?" he asked. "I mean, this week hasn't exactly been easy for you, and not only is this about the eighth time you've cried all week, you worked yourself sick a few times as well. Not to mention how bloody tired you've been. I know your case is a tough one, but you've had tougher, and it's never gotten this bad before. Are you sure there's nothing else going on?"

One of the things that Ron truly appreciated about the relationship he had with Hermione, was that they had intentionally worked very hard those first few years to make sure they were open and honest with each other, with varying results. But, no matter what, the deal was that they speak up if they truly thought it was needed. They'd both realized how much their lack of communication had affected things over the years, and they didn't want that continuing as their relationship progressed. So he wasn't worried about voicing his concerns, and was shocked by her reaction.

Hermione sat there quietly for a few seconds before looking up at him with wide eyes. A moment later, she scrambled off his lap and ran out of the room, leaving Ron to sit there stunned as he heard the bedroom door slam shut.

Had he made her cry for a fourth time?

Nervously, he stood from the chair and made his way slowly down the hall, listening for the sound of her sobs. But he didn't hear anything. Not even when he got close enough to put his ear up against the door. He tentatively cracked it open, only to see that she wasn't there. She'd retreated into their bathroom instead.

With a sigh, Ron collapsed onto their bed, lying on his back and letting his legs dangle over the side. He really did love his wife more than anything and would always do whatever he could to make sure she was safe and healthy and happy. But there were some moments where he felt completely inept and unable to do any of those things. Things he'd promised to do for the rest of his life.

He'd had to go through times that were even more difficult than this throughout his relationship with Hermione, though. Like when they were idiotic sixth years who didn't know how to properly handle their emotions. Or when he'd walked out on her and Harry. Then there was that awful misunderstanding during her last year at Hogwarts when he was in training. A fine example of a time when they'd had to work on the whole honesty thing. They'd come very close to breaking up then.

And they actually _had_ broken up for a day during his final year of Auror training. Another example of their lack of perfection when it came to communication. _That _had been the most difficult time they'd ever been through as a couple as far as Ron was concerned. He'd been in horrible shape for the entire twenty-four hours they hadn't been together, and he'd later learned that she had been too. Looking back, though, they'd actually needed it, in a way. They'd sort of settled into a complacent place in their relationship, only to be fully woken up by the reality of how close they were to completely losing each other, and how much neither ever wanted to let that happen. They had never let things get that bad again.

So, when he took a moment to gain some perspective, today was the type of day he would gladly take over any of those others. Unexplainable tears and all.

It was a solid twenty minutes before the door slowly swung open, and Ron propped himself up on his hands to look cautiously at his wife. He was relieved to see that she was no longer crying, but it surprised him to realize that, instead, she actually seemed nervous.

"You alright?" he asked softly. Hermione gave him a hesitant smile, wringing her hands as she seemed to collect herself.

"Remember when we were engaged?" she asked. "And we talked about what the future would be like?"

Ron looked at her uncertainly, completely surprised by the choice of topic. "Yeah…" he said, not sure at all what she was getting at.

She nodded, seeming grateful that he was going with it. "And we said that whenever either of us felt ready… we'd tell the other?"

It took a moment, but then it clicked. Ron gazed at her in surprise before finally responding. "Right, and I did."

Hermione nodded. "Yeah, after James' birthday party."

He nodded along with her, beginning to gather where she was going with this, but unsure what had caused her to bring it up.

"But I said I still wanted to wait a little while," she continued.

"Are you telling me you're ready?" he asked, a bit shocked but thrilled by where the conversation was going, until she shook her head. She watched him nervously before taking a deep breath.

"Actually," she said a bit shakily, "when Ginny and Harry told us they were expecting again… I got to thinking about it, and I realized that was actually something I really _did _want, so I thought...what the hell?"

She said it uncertainly as she waited nervously for his reaction. It took him another moment, but once again, it clicked soon enough.

"You mean…you've been off the potion for...?"

"Two months," she said with a nod, a guilty yet excited smile beginning to form on her lips. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you," she said apologetically. "But it typically takes a few months for it to be out of your system entirely, so there didn't seem to be a point in telling you and getting you all excited when we still had to wait."

Ron nodded in understanding, still not sure what this had to do with her emotional behavior. "So you…" he stammered out, looking at her with wide eyes. "You want to… start trying?"

Hermione let out a disbelieving chuckle and gave an amused shake of her head. "I don't think we have to."

If possible, Ron's eyes grew even larger as his mouth fell open in shock.

"You mean…" he managed to get out in a strained voice, his eyes going from her face to her belly and back to her face again, her eyes filled with hope and her smile anxious.

"I figured it would take longer," she said, the shock evident in her voice as her hand went to her stomach. "I didn't expect…"

Ron followed the movement of her hand, his eyes still wide as he gave a nervous gulp. "Holy… you're serious?"

She nodded, her hand going into the back pocket of her denim shorts and pulling out an oddly shaped white stick. "I just took a Muggle pregnancy test."

Ron stood from the bed and took a step towards her, looking down at what he now knew showed whether or not he faced impending fatherhood. But he couldn't make heads or tales of what it meant.

"Okay…" he said tentatively, his eyes meeting Hermione's. "How come you even have one of these things?"

Surprisingly, Hermione rolled her eyes. "My mum gave them to me not long after we got married. I've held onto them just in case."

Ron nodded. "And how accurate are they?"

"Well, typically, you're more likely to get a false negative than a false positive, but…"

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out another pregnancy test, and Ron saw that they looked exactly the same, even though he still wasn't sure what he was supposed to be looking at.

"One line means negative, two means positive," Hermione explained, correctly interpreting his confused look and lack of response. And then he noticed the two solid pink lines on both of the tests, which meant -

"Bloody hell," he let out with the deep breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He reached out and took both of them from Hermione, making sure he was seeing things correctly. And then a smile that was completely out of his control began to bloom across his face as he looked up at his still slightly nervous wife.

"Fucking hell, Hermione," he said with a giddy chuckle. "We're having a baby?"

She smiled brightly back at him, nodding her head as tears gathered in her eyes. "We're having a baby, Ron."

In the blink of an eye, the tests had fallen out of his hands and onto the floor, his arms wound tightly around her waist, and he lifted her off her feet as he held her tightly. Hermione let out a laugh as she held him back, one of her hands going up into his hair as the other gripped his back.

And then Ron found that this time, his wife wasn't the only one with tears in her eyes.

A baby. They were going to have a _baby._ And _he _was going to be a father. Hermione would be a mother. It would be _their baby. _

He remembered back to the day he and Hermione had first discussed having a family. It was actually a conversation he'd been nervous to have, knowing that it was something he knew he wanted with her, but uncertain if she felt the same. She'd never really mentioned having children at all, but then she'd been the one to finally bring it up, nervously asking over dinner one night if, were they to have kids someday, would he be okay with them going to a Muggle primary school. It was somewhat early in their relationship. They were still living with Harry at Grimmauld place during her first year at the Ministry. That had been the first time he felt like they had both truly acknowledged to each other where they wanted their relationship to go.

It had then grown from a vague idea in his mind to something that was actually attainable and possibly even inevitable. Someday, he and Hermione would have a family together, and even though he knew they weren't ready at the time, he'd been impatient for that time to get there. So when they'd talked about the more logistical and timing side of things during their engagement and had agreed to just wait until they were ready and to then tell the other, he knew that he would be the first one to say they were ready.

And he had been. He could so clearly remember just six months ago on the day of his nephew's first birthday party. There was no doubt that Ron loved all his nieces and nephews, but there was something different about James being the child of not just his sister but also his best friend that made things different. And James was his godson. It strengthened the connection they had and it made Ron realize that if he could love James as much as he did, how much more would he love a child that was his and Hermione's?

He'd thought about it all before, obviously, and he'd held off from saying he was ready because the fear of being an inadequate father or letting Hermione or his hypothetical child down in some way was greater than any dream he had of starting a family. But as he watched James enjoy his first cake, saw Ginny know exactly what her son needed when he fussed, and observed Harry hovering around his son as he started to get the hang of standing on his own, Ron realized that his desire to have all of those things and more far outweighed any type of fear he'd had either in the past or present.

James was such a beautiful combination of his parents and so well loved not just by Harry and Ginny but by their whole family, and Ron wanted that. He wanted to see his wife caring for their child and teaching them all the wonderful things that she'd taught him. He wanted to teach them things too, but he knew most of that would be left to his wife. She was brilliant after all. Except when it came to things like chess or Quidditch. He'd probably handle things like that. Hermione would probably argue that he had more to offer, but it didn't matter. He'd known for a long time now that they complemented each other well enough that any kid they'd have would be able to learn different things from each of them. And if there were any areas where they were both lacking, there were plenty of aunts and uncles to fill in the gaps.

So he'd told his wife that he was ready, though he hadn't really gone into all the reasons why. They'd simply been in bed after the party that night, her with a book and him just lying there pretending he was drifting off to sleep, but actually subtly watching her as he weighed whether or not it was the right time to say anything. And then it had flown out of his mouth before he'd fully decided to let it. She'd looked at him in surprise before biting her lip and setting down her book. After sitting in silent contemplation for a few minutes, she'd given him an apologetic look as she laid down to face him. He'd had a feeling she wouldn't be ready quite yet, and he was right. He'd even prepared himself for that and had done a lot of internal convincing that it would be fine if they waited another year.

But now he didn't have to wait. Because not only was Hermione ready too, she was already pregnant.

"I can't…" he choked out, his mind still reeling at his new reality as he continued to hold his wife. "I can't bloody believe it."

"Don't swear in front of the baby," she said through a giggle, and Ron laughed with her as he set her back on her feet. She wiped at the tears he hadn't realized were on his cheeks, smiling up at him with tenderness and love. He laughed again before kissing her quickly and repeatedly on the lips, causing her to laugh as well.

"Wow," he eventually said, shaking his head in disbelief. "I mean… blimey. I didn't expect today to turn into this."

"Neither did I," said Hermione. He could tell she was just as surprised as he was, despite the fact that she'd been slightly more in the loop than he had at the start of the day. She'd at least known it was a possibility.

"I thought we'd agreed to tell each other when we were ready," he couldn't help pointing out. Hermione looked a bit guilty.

"I know, and I was planning to soon. But I told you, I wasn't expecting it to happen so quickly. Besides, this way, you were rather thoroughly surprised, weren't you?"

"Yeah," he allowed with a chuckle. "I can't even be upset with you for not telling me, either. I'm just too damn happy."

Hermione smiled brightly up at him, her arms unwinding from around his neck to grip his hands. "Really? I mean, I figured you would be and I can tell you are. But, really? Even though it's a bit out of the blue?"

"Hermione, you know I've been ready for a while now," said Ron, slipping his fingers between hers and looking at her as sincerely as he could. "Even if you'd gotten pregnant when we were dating I would have been happy about it. I can hardly believe some days that I actually get the chance to have a family with you, and now I actually do. No way I'm ever going to be anything but beyond happy about that."

Hermione's eyes were wet with tears as she smiled lovingly up at her husband, and Ron's heart nearly stopped with the intensity of his elation as she slowly drew their hands to her belly, laying his flat against it and covering them with her own. There was nothing to feel yet, but just the idea that the life they'd created together was just starting to grow nearly took his breath away. He couldn't stop grinning as he leaned down and rested his forehead against hers, his thumbs caressing her stomach as they took in the moment, breathing together and picturing their future. One he hoped contained a child with wild ginger hair and a brain to rival its mother's.

"I love you so much," he said softly, feeling the words with his entire being as Hermione let out a shuddering breath.

"I love you too," she responded, the fact that she was crying once again obvious in her voice.

"You're happy about this too, right?" he couldn't help asking, pulling back a bit so he could see the truth in her eyes. But he needn't have worried. It was obvious that amidst any type of fear or uncertainty Hermione might be feeling, there was one thing radiating from her that made everything else seem inconsequential in comparison. Something even stronger than happiness. Pure joy.


End file.
